Ben Branam was born in California and moved to Austin in 2004. Four months ago, he moved to San Antonio to help start a church and pursue his own business, Modern Self Protection. Ben spent 10 years in the Marine Corps, did a combat tour in Iraq, spent a year as part of an anti-terrorist company, and taught anti-terrorism, shooting, and advance combat skills. He left to take a job as a private contractor for the Army in Iraq.

Note: This is an mySA.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by mySA or the San Antonio Express-News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

Scary Story

The following is a story I received from a friend of a friend. I left the story as written, only changing names and omitting specific places to respect the privacy of the writer.

Hi everyone, I just wanted to pass along something that happened to me early this morning, this is not a joke. This happened here in Kyle today! I had to take my husband to the airport this morning. On my way home at about 5:30 am, I exited I35 at in Kyle. I noticed a truck or suv behind me (it was raining I couldn’t tell the vehicle type at this point.) I drove down a main road and turned left at… They followed. I turned left on to FM…, they followed. I stayed aware of the vehicle behind me but wasn’t too worried. I turn left at the gas station, they follow. I thought at this point Im not going to go into the first entrance of my subdivision I will go down to the second one, they follow. I turn on my blinker to turn right into my subdivision and they turn on their blinker at that moment I decided I’m not going into the subdivision, I turn off my blinker go straight and they do the same. Now I know something is really wrong and Im being followed. (Im also with my 4 children). I turn right onto (main street Kyle) they follow, I decide I’m going to the police station. For some reason I decided to turn left and go to the side entrance at the station where they keep the cars. They followed me in, I quickly start honking and reverse the car not caring if I ram this guy or not. I make it out of the lot but I’m now terrified I swing around and pull into the front on the police station and they follow me in and pull up next to my passenger side window. Im in hysterics screaming and honking the horn. This guy is sitting there smiling at me (he never gestures or says anything just smiles and stares at me in a way that sent shivers through me) he was a Hispanic male that seemed around 40 (again it was raining and dark).The truck was silver F150 with two sets of headlights in front. Anyways after about 15 seconds he reversed and drove off. A police officer happened to come outside as he was leaving duty. I got out and reported what happened they had another patrol car follow me home. My husband is going to call and see if they have a surveillance system in the lot if they do maybe they can get a plate number, you never know who the car is registered to.

I will tell you this I was shaken to the core at this, I know especially the way he was smiling at me he was enjoying himself and I believe that if I didn’t not follow that feeling if I had and just went home he would have raped me and God only knows what else (I don’t know if he saw the kids with the tinted windows in the back.) I’m not trying to be drastic but this is how I feel. Just be careful I know we live in a great community but just go with that feeling when you feel something is not right.

This is a smart and articulate women who was obviously very shaken by what happened to her.

Some of the things she did right:

• She used her instincts and acted on them

• She investigated until she new

• She didn’t go home

• She got help without endangering herself or others

• She didn’t give up even when the first attempt to get help didn’t work

Things she could have done

• Called the police ahead of time

• Gone someplace with lots of people

Don’t get me wrong. In this case she did exactly what she should have. No one was hurt, and the dirt bag didn’t find out where she lived.